damonfoster

Another of those historical "epics" abusing the white-people-in-turbans approach. When it comes to Italian sword & sandal dramas, I prefer the more fantasy-themed ones with two-fisted muscle-men and the occasional monster. Unfortunately, THE CONQUEROR OF THE ORIENT replaces the more imaginative elements with enough clichés to make every plot-twist visible a mile away. Not only has the story been told many times before and since, but it's usually more entertaining in other variations of these often repeated themes (i.e. palace intrigue & conspiracies, avenging the death of one's father). It's dialog-heavy and most of its action scenes are pretty bad: Flimsy swords and dreadfully bad swordplay. I don't know if these weak (and few) duels were exciting back in 1960, because I'm seeing them through 21st century eyes. In short, the movie doesn't stand the test of the times and even in its English dubbed form, THE CONQUEROR OF THE ORIENT just isn't interesting.

Even so, I enjoyed it more than Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR (2000). But then, I enjoyed getting a route canal more than I enjoyed GLADIATOR. To be fair, THE CONQUEROR OF THE ORIENT has its good points: The costumes aren't bad, the sets (curtains help cover the walls' lack of props) are okay, and them harem girls put Barbara Eden "Jeanie" to shame. Though not cheap by Italian 1960s standards, its resourceful budget cuts add unintended humor: A night-time cityscape is an obvious matte that looks like a cartoon. In one scene, the obligatory tyrant (Paul Muller) looks out the window of his lavish palace, to see revolting peasants carrying torches. It's so obvious that these 'torches' are lit matches that it's actually quite cute!

When I watched this average tale of tunic-attired hero Nadir (Rik Battaglia), I had to tolerate a badly restored VHS tape with abrupt cuts (severing many sentences mid-word), scratches, and the "Something Weird Video" logo throughout. Anyway: I don't think there was any finger-printing or DNA testing back in the old primitive Middle East, so when an exiled prince(Battaglia) wants to prove he's the rightful heir to the throne, they have tests. One test is simply to hit a board using his sword! Oncethis feat is accomplished, our hero leads the rebellion to rescue Princess Fatima (Irene Tunc) and her cleavage. The reluctant bride was held captive by evil ruler Dakar (Paul Muller), until the palace is attacked by heroic Rik Battaglia. The final (and only) fight between Muller & Battaglia is decent, or at least better than the other action scenes in this slow-paced drama. In one decent stunt, the good guy swings on a vale and kicks Muller's stunt-double. Naturally, Rik Battaglia wins and gets the girl (and the country).

Korean fantasy which reminded me of Chinese stuff Wu Cheng En's Journey to the West novel, but with the occasional usage of a gyonsi (Chinese vampire). But "Hong Gil Tong" (AKA Hong Kil Tong) is a famous Korean folk hero from long ago, there are a lot of different movies, cartoons & TV shows about him—unfortunately, very few are available outside Korea. I doubt any were ever given English translation of any kind, which is unfortunate because they're not much worse than HK's kung fu comedies of the late 1970s.

This is only one of the SUPER HONG KIL TONG films; there are at least three films in this series. The FX in this movie are dirt cheap (i.e. rubber animal masks on stuntmen are supposed to depict forrest demons!), the comedy is infantile, and the script is down right boring. But its crudeness adds unintended chuckles, and the grand finale has some nice tae kwon do action; the fights nearly save this dumb farce.

It took over a month to watch this talky, stupid, boring, cheap comedy from the Philippines. I could only stomach this cinematic ineptitude for 15 minutes at a time! Needless to say, I was disappointed, because I'm always curious to see a sci-fi movie from a country not known for science fiction. Of course, I'm also not a fan of videogames (I've never played MORTAL COMBAT), so if there are in-jokes, I'm not getting them. Language is also a factor, because MAGIC COMBAT was never intended for those of us who are Tagalog-impaired.

Infantile slapstick and childish sound FX 'highlight' this pathetically cheap farce about college or high school students Mario & Luigi. These annoying geeks go through a number of dumb comedic bits before something magical brings video game characters to life. Its action scenes are limited and won't impress fans of even the worst martial arts films! If you want to see an obscure movie's take on video games, seek out the Korean oddity STREET LAWLESS instead, and let MAGIC COMBAT rot into obscurity.